WARNING SIGNS:Curtis Forteau — described by his family as a schizophrenic who has committed violent attacks — is in custody yesterday in the stabbing of Sabatha Tirado (left).

WARNING SIGNS: Curtis Forteau — described by his family as a schizophrenic who has committed violent attacks — is in custody yesterday in the stabbing of Sabatha Tirado (above). (Kristy Leibowitz)

WARNING SIGNS: Curtis Forteau — described by his family as a schizophrenic who has committed violent attacks — is in custody yesterday in the stabbing of Sabatha Tirado (left). (
)

The stomach wound suffered by the Upper East Side salon worker who bravely fought a homeless lunatic trying to steal her purse was near a tattoo that reads: “I was born to survive.”

Sabatha Tirado got that body art because “she has always been a survivor,” her distraught mom, Alicia Arroyo, said at New York Hospital, where the pretty 25-year-old was recovering yesterday.

“She is in extreme pain” but “is going to make a full recovery,” Arroyo, 46, said. “She is traumatized, and I’m sure she is going to need counseling after this.

“My daughter is very brave. She’s is an exceptional young lady.”

Curtis Forteau — a schizophrenic with a lengthy arrest record — was hit with attempted-murder and assault charges after cops nabbed him Tuesday night on Wards Island.

Tirado, who lives in Astoria, Queens, was headed to work at European Wax Center that morning when Forteau allegedly grabbed at her bag on Second Avenue near East 86th Street.

When she resisted, Forteau, 29, stabbed and pepper-sprayed her face before running off, cops said.

“I heard a scream — it was such a blood-curdling scream,” said a nurse who came to Tirado’s aid. “She was on her knees, with blood dripping from her stomach.

“She was scared to death,” said the nurse, who had someone else call Tirado’s retired NYPD-cop dad.

Forteau is still on probation for pepper-spraying a woman on a Midtown street in May 2009, officials said. Last month, after just three weeks of work, he was fired from as a seasonal Parks Department employee, officials said.

As he was walked out of the 19th Precinct station house yesterday, he shouted, “I never, ever stabbed anybody. I never, ever hurt anyone.”

Last night at his arraignment, where he was held without bail, he kept interrupting his lawyer, who explained to the judge that Forteau wanted to represent himself.

The judge said he couldn’t.

Forteau’s family said he’s dangerous if he’s not taking his meds.

“My brother’s sick,” said his youngest brother at the family’s Bronx home. “He needs to be admitted into a hospital and stay for a very long time.”

He and another brother said Forteau’s schizophrenia became pronounced about eight years ago, when he stabbed one of their friends. Two years later, he pepper-sprayed one brother and then a “random lady on the same day.”

They said that last month, Forteau attacked their mother.

“They should have been looking for him on the assault charge, but they weren’t,” the youngest brother said. “If they got him, this attack never would have happened.”